Aristotle’s Ethics As First Philosophy

The paper is devoted to the problem of the correlation between Aristotle’s ethics and metaphysics. The author raises the following question: could Aristotle’s ethics be the first philosophy? First, the article reveals the reasons and grounds according to which the «first philosophy» is the first. Then the concept of ethics as the first philosophy is exposed through the philosophy of E. Levinas. According to this view, ethics is a lens through which all other philosophical questions must be considered, and therefore
it is the first. The author identifies three criteria that Aristotle’s ethics must meet in order to be the first philosophy. Ethics (1) has to deal with the first principles and causes, (2) to give the universal knowledge and (3) to be valued above other disciplines. It is shown that ethics does not fully meet any of these criteria. At the same time, the author concludes that ethics can claim to be the title of the first philosophy, if by ethics we mean only the part that concerns the dianoetic virtues.

Keywords: ethics, first philosophy, metaphysics, Aristotle, Levinas.